


Feeding the Hand that Bites

by Corycides



Series: Tumbling On [12]
Category: Revolution (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-05
Updated: 2013-12-05
Packaged: 2018-01-03 12:31:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1070498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corycides/pseuds/Corycides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The boy - man, he’d been older than Charlie, but she’d fallen into the habit of thinking of him as a child - died a month before they got there. Two months after Miles told Bass where his son was. His grave was a bare patch of raw dirt with a roughly carved marker. It didn’t say Monroe on it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feeding the Hand that Bites

**Author's Note:**

> Lightgamble: Bass finds his grandchild

The boy - man, he’d been older than Charlie, but she’d fallen into the habit of thinking of him as a child - died a month before they got there. Two months after Miles told Bass where his son was. His grave was a bare patch of raw dirt with a roughly carved marker. It didn’t say Monroe on it.

Monroe knelt in the dirt, sobbing with the wet-faced, ugly abandon of a child. It was like someone had skinned him, leaving his nerve endings raw and bloody on top of his flesh. Miles could have comforted him, would have known what to say. It should have been Miles here. All Charlie could see was the bodies of her own dead, the one’s Monroe’s ambition had put in the ground.

There’d always been someone there for her, though. Maggie, Miles, Nora, Rachel...all Monroe had in the world lay in the dirt at his knees. Reluctantly, moving like her joints had aged, Charlie stepped forward and put her hand on his shoulder.

‘I’m...’

He turned and wrapped his arms around her legs, burying his face against her stomach. It sounded like his heart was breaking, broken.

It wasn’t in Charlie to deny that, not even to him. Maybe not even when she’d really hated him. She ran her fingers through his hair, grooming his curls tidy as if it might help.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. Nothing else came out. There was nothing else to say that didn’t sound empty, the same hollow platitudes people had told her. ‘You didn’t deserve this.’

His mouth gaped a laugh against her bare stomach. ‘I did,’ he said. ‘I did, I know that, but he didn’t.’

It broke Charlie. She knelt down next to him and let him use her shoulder to cry himself out, wiping snot and tears off his face on her sleeve.

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she said.

‘No,’ Monroe said. His voice was raw with sobbing, gravel and blood. ‘It was Miles’.’

Dread and...just exhaustion...washed over Charlie. She rested her forehead against Monroe’s. ‘Don’t.’

‘If he’d told me-’

‘If you kill him, I’ll kill you.’

He rubbed his face against her shoulder, his breath warm on her collarbone. ‘I kidnapped your mother, caused your brother and your father’s death...but it’s Miles that pushes you into being a killer?’

Charlie pushed him away, scrambling backwards on the heels of her hand over the wet grass. He looked sorry, his hands dropping to his thighs, but it was too late for that.

‘Go to hell, Monroe,’ she said.

 

* * *

 

He didn’t apologise. He never apologised. It was just ignored, like the willingness to let it be should be enough for her. Charlie checked the edge of her sword by the campfire, looking for nicks where the light played over the edge. He cleaned the guns, hands moving over them with a sure touch that sometimes made her tingle. Tonight it didn’t, and she wasn’t sure if it was because he was sad or she was pissed.

Instead of sleeping by the fire with him - against his back or under his arm, rubbing the smell of him all over her and pretending it was completely innocent - she crawled up onto the wagon’s jockey-box.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ he said, breaking the silence.

‘You’re not my Dad and you’re not my friend,’ she said, dragging the horse-ripe blanket up over her. ‘So don’t try and tell me what to do.’

‘Don’t be a child, Charlie.’

‘Go to sleep.’

* * *

 

 

The rocking of the wagon moving the next morning woke her up. She yawned, jaw cracking, and stretched, realising halfway that her head was in his lap, his hand was on her back and she was not happy with him. ‘You should have just woken me up,’ she said roughly, sitting up and scooting away from him.

He let her go. ‘You had a restless night. I thought you could do with the sleep.’

Charlie opened her mouth to snap, but he looked old this morning. His face was still wet and raw-looking, but more it was defeated. He’d looked like that in New Vegas, even with diamonds in his pockets and a woman in a corset on his arm. Like the only reason to get up in the morning was to fill the hours till you could pass out again.

‘I’m fine,’ she said instead. She hated being weak, hated caring about hurting people. Even assholes who didn’t deserve. ‘Where are we going.’

He wiped his face. ‘Like you said, find who killed my son.’

‘You don’t even know he was killed. It could have been an accident; he could have been sick.’

Monroe shook his head. ‘Someone’s to blame.’

If they weren’t, Charlie filled in the silence, he’d still find them. Giving up she looked around, trying to get a feel for the area. It was only a few hundred miles from Chicago. From what Miles had said, he’d kept a closer eye on Monroe’s kid than he had his blood niece and nephew. Poppy fields were handkerchiefs of red in the distance, but the fields around them were full of rows of weird, flat apple trees. Charlie’s stomach - neither of them had felt like eating last night, and she’d missed her chance this morning - growled.

‘Stop,’ she said.

He did, groaning in frustration when he realised why. She scrambled over the fence and grabbed apples from the ground, gathering them up in the hem of her shirt. There were stomach-cramping unripe green and wormy, but she still shoved a clip of gold conspicuously into a crack in a tree. There had been times, growing up, when the unripe and the rotten had been all that kept them from starving. Dad had learned to farm and Maggie’s skills were always valuable, but there had been years when they had nothing and neither did anyone else. It didn’t matter how grateful someone was for a set leg or a delivered baby, when their larder was as empty as yours.

‘I’m not hungry,’ Monroe rasped as she clumsily hauled herself back up into the seat, one hand on the ladder and the other cuddling her apples to her stomach.

Charlie shrugged and polished an apple against her thigh, turning the wormy side to her palm before taking a bite. ‘They aren’t for you.’

He snapped the reins and the horses shook their heads and snorted, harness creaking as they leaned into the leather. The jolt of the wagon jarred an apple loose from her lap. Monroe snatched it out of the air and tossed it back to her.

 

* * *

 

Tulsa was a broken little town, swamped by refugees and Patriots. Camps had sprung up around the town walls, the stink of open sewers and makeshift sanitation starting to permeate the air. Children ran alongside the road, skinny and knobbly jointed, rhyming for food, jobs, coin and risking fingers and Monroe’s patience by grabbing at the wheels and the horses. Charlie tossed them apples, ignoring the curses from the ones that needed money and Monroe’s glare.

He tied up at the campground and went to ask questions. Nobody had any answers they were willing to give the grim-eyed, raw-voiced man with the bloody knuckles and sword. He looked like a bad decision waiting to happen.

A pretty girl with a sad face and a story about the man’s ma sending a message? There were still no answers, but enough hints that Charlie could stick the fragments together to make a story. A beautiful girl in a tower, an evil tyrant and a handsome young farmboy…it didn’t end with ‘happily ever after’. Nothing ever did. ‘Bloodily ever after’ was more common in Charlie’s experience.

It was tragic and pointless and Charlie had the terrible feeling it was going to be the ruined town’s death knell.

‘It’s not their fault,’ she said. Her fingers dug into Monroe’s arm, dragging him away from stripping wires. ‘They’re scared. They’ve been scared a long time.’

‘They should have done something.’

‘Did anyone against you?’

He stopped, muscles going stiff and wooden under his skin. ‘That’s...’

‘Not fair? They’re not fighters, they’re millers and tailors and apple farmers. Tancredi owns half the town and the half he doesn’t own is in hock to him. What were they going to do? Line up and die in the hopes Tancredi’s soldiers arms would get tired?’

He peeled her fingers off his arm and looked at her with blue eyes gone empty with madness. It was the way he’d looked at her when he was going to let Strausser kill her, every bit of him that might feel anything stripped down and locked away.

‘Yes,’ he said coldly, moving her out of his way. ‘Now get out of my way.’

Charlie stepped back in front of him, crossing her arms and lifting her chin. ‘I’m not Miles. I don’t turn my back and pretend to be surprised when I turn back around. If you don’t want me against you, you listen to me.’

He looked her up and down, from boots to earnest blue eyes. ‘Terrifying.’

‘Last tin-pot dictator I went up against, doesn’t even a tin pot to piss in anymore,’ Charlie said. She smiled a challenge at him. ‘Remember?’

He looked away, looked back. His eyes looked a little bit more sane, pissed but sane. ‘Don’t push your luck, Charlotte. I don’t like you that much.’

‘We go against Tancredi,’ she said. ‘Not the town. Agreed.’

She stuck her hand out and waited. After a long second, he dropped his stare and grabbed her hand. The press of callused fingers, bending her bones, was somewhere between warning and gratitude.

‘Agreed.’ He jerked her in close, bending his head down until there was barely room for a breth between them. ‘Inaction I’ll overlook, for you, but if any of them raised a hand to my son...’

* * *

The poppy fields burned, smoke sweat and sickly sticky. Charlie dragged her damp mask over her face and vaulted through the hole she'd blown in the wall - stone hot against her hand. Tancredi’s guard were battered and bruised, but not out. A huge bald man - muscles layered under slabs of fat, blood scabbed over a bloody scalp - lunged at her out of the smoke. She dodged - or fell. The knee she’d damaged in the skirmish in town popped under her and folded in a new, bad way. Her hip and elbow hit the ground with a rattle of pain. She snatched her knife from its sheath and stabbed it through the man’s shoe, the edge popping through leather and flesh and bone down into the wooden floor.

The scream that ripped out of him was high and tearing, like a rabbit in a trap. Charlie flipped her sword to her other hand and thrust up into his gut, twisting to open him from hip to hip. The pale glisten of his guts bulged out in a wash of blood. Charlie rolled out of the way and scrambled to her feet. Her knee wobbled, feeling worryingly floaty, but held. Hurt, but held.

She grabbed the rifle the guard had dropped, slinging it over her shoulder, and loped down the singed, scarred corridors. Half the guards were down, dead or unconscious. The others were shaken enough that Charlie was able to take them out. One hard-faced woman tackled her into a wall, her knife scraping a furrow along Charlie’s jaw as she tried to slit her throat. Charlie kneed her in the thigh, knocking her off balance, and broke her jaw with the butt of her rifle.

‘Where is he?’ she gritted, kneeling on the woman’s chest.

Through bloody teeth, the woman groaned something that might have been ‘who’. Charlie swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth - shame, it was what shame tasted like - and punched her again. ‘Sebastian Monroe. Don’t pretend you don’t know where he is.’

The woman licked her lips, eyes fidgeting with a watered down version of Miles ‘can I make this situation work for me’ look. Charlie steeled herself, grabbed the wonky jaw and twisted. The woman screamed, blood spraying over Charlie’s fingers.

‘I won’t kill you,’ Charlie said. Her lips felt numb. ‘I’ll make you wish I had.’

The woman looked at her like...like people looked at Monroe. Fear in her eyes and the defiance draining out of her. Through blood and a mangled jaw she gave Charlie directions, and apologised.

Charlie killed her quickly, to avoid the temptation to hurt her later.

They’d worked Monroe over - but not enough. When Charlie got there he was already loose, someone else’s sword in hand and other people’s blood disguising how badly hurt he was.

‘Are you OK?’

He wiped his sleeve over his mouth. ‘I can fight.’

‘Not what I asked.’

His mouth softened and he touched her jaw, a quick, careful caress. ‘I’m OK.’

Charlie shook her head. ‘Don’t be Miles.’

He grabbed her shoulder and shoved her aside, stripping the gun off her shoulder. Charlie hunched down, covering her head with her hands, as he stitched bloody injuries across the guards in the door. Stepping over her legs he strode out into the hall, checking for more guards. His shirt was sodden and glued to his back with blood.

‘Idiot,’ Charlie muttered.

He gave a stiff shrug of apology for that and kicked a rifle across the floor towards her. Charlie trapped it under her foot. ‘Are we done.’

Monroe swallowed. ‘No. You are. Get out.’

‘No.’

‘I’m not Miles, do as you’re told,’ he snapped. ‘Go. Draw them off, I’ll meet you outside.’

He raced off, jumping over the dead and rubble. Charlie started after him, hesitated and swore, wrenching around and heading in the opposite direction.

 

* * *

 

Monroe sat on the rock, bent forwards with his elbows braced on his knees. His shirt was tangled around his wrists. He tolerated the sting of cheap alcohol against the raw welts scouring his back. Charlie touched the inflamed edges with ginger fingers.

‘Do they need stitched?’ she asked.

‘No,’ Monroe said. ‘They’d just pull. You done?’

Charlie looked at his back, hands hovering a fret away from fussing over what still looked like a bloody, bruised mess. ‘Yes.’

While Monroe shrugged his shirt back on, Charlie went over to check on the baby. It was lying in a makeshift kit-bag cradle, chewing industriously on its toes. Wispy blonde curls and mild blue eyes in a pink and white face.

‘What about its mom?’ she asked.

‘Her,’ Monroe corrected. He joined Charlie, hand tucking into her waist, and looked down at the baby. The only time Charlie had seen that look on his face before was when he was looking at Miles. ‘She was dead when I got there.’

Charlie didn’t want to know the answer, but she still asked. ‘Are you lying to me.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I didn’t have anything about the girl. My son loved her. I’d have brought her out if I could.’

It felt like a lie, but Charlie couldn’t prove that. She didn’t, again, want to.

‘What are you going to do with it?’

‘Her. Take her home.’

The baby giggled up at them. It felt strangely...domestic...standing there. Charlie stepped away from him. ‘You don’t have a home.’

Monroe picked the baby up - careful and…

‘Support her head,’ Charlie said, redistributing his hands.

‘We’ll make one,’ he said, smiling at Charlie.

No. She stepped back, hands in her pockets to avoid the offer of the small, helpless sack. ‘Congratulations, Grandad.’

 

* * *

 

It wasn’t that she had anything against the baby. She’d talked Monroe out of calling the poor thing Betsy, hadn’t she? Except she’d spent more of her life living for someone else than she had living.

Protect her brother, rescue her brother, avenge her brother - and she was tired. The last thing she wanted was to be responsible for anyone else.

Still, she couldn’t deny that Monroe wearing a baby strapped to his chest like a grenade was entertaining.

‘If I need to fight…’ he grumbled.

‘She’s not mine, Grandad,’ Charlie reminded him. ‘I’m not taking over.’

Monroe caught her neck, fingers curling around the nape, and pulled her close. ‘You can call me that all you like,’ he purred raggedly. ‘Doesn’t mean it’s true.’

‘You smell like baby poop and cornbread,’ Charlie said, shoving him away.

The jarred movement woke the babe and she wailed in that thin, high piercing sound that reached right through your eardrums and tried to kickstart your parental instincts.

Monroe growled under his breath, frustrated and tired. Charlie sniffed the air delicately. ‘You need to change her.’

He was good with babies, she had realised with surprise.He held the baby along his forearm, tucked neatly into his side. Chubby fat feet kicked as he stripped the nappy off and tossed it it into the bushes. Neither of them were willing to wash them. Monroe hummed a lullaby to her.

They were a few days from ‘home’, not that it was home. Even when it tried. That would be Charlie’s excuse if anyone asked why she’d dropped her guard. The first arrow hit one of the horse’s in the throat, bright blood pumping out and down its leg in thick ribbons. It dropped in the harness, dragging its partner down with it.

It wasn’t a full war-clan, just the nomadic youths seeking their first kill-tallies. Skinny and hungry and vicious as weasels, sweating off their grease and pigment war-paint in the heat. Charlie grabbed for her rifle and ended up with an armload of baby instead.

‘Son-of-a-’

‘Just get her somewhere safe,’ Monroe snapped, shoving her.

Any other time Charlie would have told him where to get off, but she knew he couldn’t concentrate if the baby was in danger. It was the last family he had.

Sword in one hand and baby held to her shoulder with the other, Charlie ran for the nearby field. As she scrambled over the fence, she desperately tried to remember where the nearest houses were. She’d lived here for nearly a year more or less, mostly less; she should know where to go get help.

A branch swung out of the long corn and caught her across the face. Her nose made a distressing sound, the taste of iron filling her mouth, and the world went fuzzy around the edges. She remembered to compensate for the baby, but that was all she had.

‘Stupid bitch,’ the nomad said, spitting on her. The friends who’d lain in ambush laughed, and slapped each other on the bare shoulders. ‘Gonna eat the baby; have some fun with you, eh?’

She kicked him in the balls, using her heel to drive as far back up into his body as she could. He went a dull red and doubled, clutching himself. ‘Cut the bitch’s feet off,’ he groaned, staggering away.

Charlie fought but they pinned her down, swarming her to the ground, and then one of them started sawing at her ankle. The baby, crying now with the monotonous ‘I really need this’ siren of distress, got passed from hand to hand like a football.

They were still laughing when Monroe came over the fence in one fluid move, two men dead before his feet even hit the ground. The nomads loosened their grip on Charlie. She kicked her way free, aiming for joints and nerve clusters. It was Monroe who killed them all, and left them in the field like a macabre gift for the farmer.

‘You hurt?’ he asked, kneeling next to Charlie and touching her jaw and wrists. It was the first time he’d ever asked. She was. Her back was bruised, her nose was throbbing like it was broken and the wet heat in her boot suggested the tribesman knife had gotten through leather. She still shook her head.

‘I’m fine.’

He grabbed her nose unceremoniously and yanked, the pop twanging behind her eyes. ‘And you say I’m like Miles.’

 

* * *

 

It had been useful on the trip. No one had questioned the baby’s parentage. They’d just looked at the three sets of blue eyes and blondish mops and accepted the baby belonged. Women always said the kid looked like Charlie, which was good for a laugh.

With Miles, looking healthier and softer than he had in years, it was more a drawback. His face went a horrified grey.

‘What the hell is that?’

Monroe looked down at the baby. He’d bartered for a sunhat for her in some rathole town when Charlie wasn’t there to stop him being ridiculous. It was a bucket of thing, straw and glued with fading summer flower corsages.

It didn’t help anything when he smirked and said, ‘This is Danielle Monroe.’


End file.
